Chapter 1
Bridget
I was fucking myself in the kitchen and not really even into it when I got the text, and you know I wasn’t really into it, because normally I wasn’t one for catching up on old work friends when I had eight inches of silicone shoved up inside my pussy. It had been a little hard for me to get in the mood when my life was falling apart, and it was really, really saying something whenIcouldn’t get in the mood.
Having to hear Mariah Carey belting about Christmas every time I went to the shop did not help.
I was just idly looking at my phone anyway while I was trying to get into it, so at first I just clocked that a message came in and I went to check on it, and my stomach dropped when I saw Victoria’s name on it, along with,Hey, Bridget, I hope you’ve been well. If it’s not too much trouble, I wanted to check…
Victoria Jameson was not compatible with fucking myself in the kitchen. No way I was getting into this now. I groaned, taking the toy back out and grudgingly putting my clothes back, cleaning it down and washing my hands before I dropped down next to the window with a good six inches of damn snow piling up in the sill, and I checked the text message.
I was wondering if I could check in with you about some things back in the area there. I’d like to schedule a call with you at some point, if you wouldn’t mind sparing a few minutes to talk. Thanks so much for your help. – Victoria
She even wrote her texts like an email. I groaned. Corporate life was haunting me more by the minute.
Victoria Jameson had been my coworker, back in a previous life—a year and a half ago, back when I’d worked as an assistant director of sales for one of those firms that did a lot of work and I still wasn’t quite sure what exactly the end result of it all was. She was the pencil-pusher’s pencil-pusher in a pencil skirt to match, always very serious, always very professional, and she’d left around the same time I did. Only difference was that she left for almost twice her salary working in Seattle, while I left to go be a lesbian sex blogger and erotic content creator.
I didn’t tell her that part, though. Just told her I wanted to pursue myindependent endeavors.Believe it or not, I’d actually done a good job pretending to be a polished professional while I was working, too.
I doubted I could help with whatever Victoria wanted, but frankly, I needed the distraction. I’d made the mistake of checking my bank balance this morning, and I’d been trying to distract myself all day—first with my latest book about a girl getting ravished by a sexy lesbian minotaur, which, turns out, was a popular enough concept that this was my fourth book now in theravished by a sexy lesbian minotaurseries. My stalwart chaste heroine being teased with nipple play untilshe finally broke and begged the minotaur to fuck her with her huge strap wasn’t distraction enough, even though it was ludicrous that it wouldn’t have been, and I’d tried shifting gears to the erotic audio reading my subscribers had been begging for more of, but that didn’t do the trick either. Tried watching some new videos from some of my other content-creator friends, but even seeing my friend Gina get reverse-spitroasted by her two girlfriends wasn’t distraction enough, and fucking myself in the kitchen didn’t work either, so at this point, maybe talking about accounting firms or whatever Victoria wanted would work instead. I didn’tknow.I just wanted to pout and curl up in a corner with my stuffed triceratops Mary and talk to my friends or get myself off on the vibrator I’d put in Mary’s tail, but none of that paid rent.
So I texted Victoria back, and I said,Hey, I’m happy to chat. I’m free all day today if you want to get right to it. You know, living that independent schedule life.
Victoria replied almost instantly.I’m happy to hear your independent ventures have still been working out for you, then. Thanks for agreeing to help. Could we pencil it in for two o’clock your time?
I looked up at the corner of my phone.You mean, in six minutes?
If you must be so precise. I confess I may be a little bit time-pressured.
I hit call. She picked up sounding sheepish. “I am sorry to bother you on such short notice. I hope you weren’t in the middle of anything?”
I looked at the dildo drying next to the sink. “Oh, um… nothing too much,” I said. “Just some Christmas baking. You know how it is.”
“That does sound wonderful,” she said enviously. She still sounded as crisp and polished as ever… I probably should havefound it a little annoying or stuffy or whatever, but, well, I, er—I mean, if we were laying it all out on the table, I had a thing for a girl in a pencil skirt and crisp white blouse whopenciled things in.I’d written a lot of smutty stories about them getting… corrupted. But I wasn’t going to think about that while I was talking to Victoria.
“It’s really nice,” I said breezily. “But I hear you’re in a time crunch, so, you know, I won’t go rambling off to you about my… snickerdoodles.” I couldn’t bake cookies to save my life. I hoped she wasn’t about to check me on my answers. “What can I do for you? How’s everything in Seattle?”
“Horrible,” she said with a note of forced cheer. “They could have paid me ten times as much and I wouldn’t have done it. I quit.”
“Oh, shit. What are you doing now, then?”
“Coming home, for better or worse,” she sighed. “But I don’t have a job lined up, so finding accommodation isn’t going to be straightforward, shall we say. I saved up as much as I could before I quit, but most places want to see pay stubs, so… I was hoping you might have some leads about anybody with a spare room they could rent out where they’re not likely to worry as much. I know you kept a close eye on the real estate market there and were looking at bigger listings.”
Okay, well, she wasn’t wrong, but I’d been looking because I had big ambitions and I wanted a two-bed apartment to convert the second room into a studio for my work. But I wasn’t going to tell Victoriaoh, I don’t know much about that, I was just making the ultimate fuck den.
“That’s a lot,” was what I finally settled for saying. “Um… are you doing okay?”
She laughed a forced laugh. “Are any of us doing okay?”
“I don’t know anything off the top of my head, but I’ll keep an eye out, see if anything pops up. When do you need to move by?”
“Well,” she said, sounding, for the first time I’d heard from her, genuinely embarrassed. I waited for her to speak, and when she didn’t, I ventured,
“It’s soon, isn’t it?”
“It would be ideal if I could move over the weekend.”
“I never thought you would be impulsive, Victoria.”
